Windows Vista includes a number of tools that you can use to pinpoint performance bottlenecks. Some of these, such as the System Health Report, the Windows Experience Index, and the Reliability Monitor, provide static snapshots showing the resources available to your system and where those resources might not be adequate to your needs. Others, such as the venerable Windows Task Manager, the new Resource Overview, and Performance Monitor (an improved version of the tool known in Windows XP as System Monitor), let you track a variety of performance metrics in real time.
In addition to these snapshot and monitoring utilities, Windows Vista incorporates the following forms of performance-enhancing technology: SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive
All three of these are designed to reduce the amount of time your system spends engaged in performance degrading disk IO. SuperFetch is a memory management technology that observes your computer usage patterns over extended stretches of time (noting the programs you run and the days and times you typically run them) and adjusts caching behavior to accommodate your own particularities. ReadyBoost uses external memory devices (such as USB 2.0 flash disks) to cache disk content of all kinds, reducing the need for time consuming hard disk access. And ReadyDrive is technology that supports the use of hybrid hard disk drives drives that incorporate nonvolatile flash memory (NVRAM) as well as conventional rotating disk media. Hybrid drives are particularly useful for extending battery life on portable computers, because they reduce the need for drive spin.
SuperFetch is useful to anyone running Windows Vista. You don’t need to do anything except be glad that it’s there. ReadyDrive should be of interest if you’re in the market for a new computer and hybrid drives are a purchase option. ReadyBoost, in contrast, is of no value unless you implement it by attaching a suitable external memory device to your system. For details, see “Using ReadyBoost” later in this article.
This tips will review these basic performance enhancing strategies:
- Ensuring that you have adequate RAM
- Ensuring that you have an adequate virtual memory configuration
- Using ReadyBoost
- Managing startup programs
- Keeping your disks defragmented
- Maintaining adequate free space on your disks
- Avoiding tweaks of dubious value
Ensuring that you have adequate RAM
Random access memory (RAM) is the vital stuff that keeps Windows running smoothly. Having enough physical (main) memory helps reduce the operating system’s dependence on virtual memory, thereby minimizing the number of number of times Windows has to swap information between fast memory chips and your (relatively slow) hard disk. How much memory do you need?
The “Windows Vista Capable” and “Windows Vista Premium Ready” stickers that appear on some new hardware are based on standards expressed at the Windows Vista Enterprise Hardware Planning Guidance site. According to these standards, a system needs 512 MB to be “Windows Vista Capable” and at least 1 GB to be “Windows Vista Premium Ready.” You should consider “Windows Vista Capable” to mean adequate (if barely) for Windows Vista Home Basic. For the more feature rich editions of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate treat the “Windows Vista Premium Ready” standards as a minimum. In any case, doubling these minimums will provide a better ride for most users.
You can gauge the adequacy of your computer’s physical memory by watching the Memory graph in the Resource Overview section of the Reliability and Performance Monitor (to open this tool, click the Start buttonPicture of the Start button , type perfmon, and then press ENTER). The blue line on the graph indicates the percentage of your physical memory that’s currently in use. If this line hovers in the sub arctic zone (say, north of 60 percent) most of the time under your typical working conditions, you might want to consider adding memory to your computer, particularly if you are also seeing the green line on the same graph, the line that indicates the number of hard faults per second your system is generating, spike off the top of the graph for extended periods of time. (A hard fault, which despite its name is not an error condition, is an instance where a block of memory needed by the operating system has to be fetched from the page file on the hard disk. A high number of hard faults per second indicates a large perhaps excessive reliance on virtual memory, with consequent adverse performance effects.)
Ensuring that you have an adequate virtual-memory configuration
Physical memory might be the vital lubricant of a happily humming Windows machine, but Windows is not designed to run on RAM chips alone, no matter how many of them you have. In addition to using physical RAM to store programs and data, Windows creates a hidden file on your primary hard disk and uses that file to swap pages of data out of physical memory when necessary. The “swap file” (these days more commonly called a page file) acts as an extension of main memory or, in other words, as virtual memory.
In a default installation, Windows creates the page file in the root folder on the same drive that holds the Windows system files. The size of the page file is determined by the amount of RAM in your system. By default, the minimum size is 1.5 times the amount of physical RAM, and the maximum size is three times the amount of RAM (twice the minimum). You can see the page file in a Windows Explorer window if you configure Windows to show hidden and system files; look for Pagefile.sys in the root of your system drive.
To see the current configuration of your system’s virtual memory, click the Start button, click Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, click Performance Information and Tools, click Advanced Tools (in the Tasks pane at the left side of the dialog box), and then click Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows. After answering the User Account Control prompt, you’ll arrive at the Performance Options dialog box. You’re nearly there; click the Advanced tab, and then click Change. The image below shows the Virtual Memory dialog box, with default settings for a machine with 2 GB of RAM (default, that is, except that we cleared the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives check box to make the rest of the dialog box easier to read).
By default, Windows creates a single page file in the root folder on the same volume that holds the Windows system files and manages its size for you. The Currently allocated number near the bottom of the dialog box shows you how large the file is now. If conditions on your system change (you run an unusually large assortment of memory-intensive applications, for example), Windows might expand the page file. It might then return the file to its original size (or a smaller size) if the demand subsides. All this happens without intervention or notification if you leave the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives check box selected.
If you don’t want Windows to do this for you, you have the following options:
- You can move the page file to a different volume, if you have more than one.
- If you have more than one volume, you can establish more than one page file.
- For any page file, you can choose between System managed size and Custom size.
- If you choose Custom size, you can specify an initial size and a maximum size.
You can remove a paging file from a volume by selecting the volume and choosing No paging file. (You can even get rid of all paging files this way, although doing so is not recommended, even on systems with a lot of RAM.)
Should you get involved in page-file management, and, if so, how?
If you have more than one physical disk, moving the page file to a fast drive that doesn’t contain your Windows system files is a good idea. Using multiple page files split over two or more physical disks is an even better idea, because your disk controller can process multiple requests to read or write data concurrently. Don’t make the mistake of creating two or more page files using multiple volumes on a single physical disk, however. If you have a single hard disk that contains C, D, and E volumes, for example, and you split the page file over two or more of these, you might actually make your computer run more slowly than before. In that configuration, the heads on the physical disk have to do more work, loading pages from different portions of the same disk sequentially, rather than loading data from a single contiguous region of the hard disk.
If you are short of hard disk space, you might consider setting a smaller initial page file size. You can use a handy script from Windows MVP Bill James to monitor current page file usage and session peak usage. This tool, a free download at BillsWay.com, was written for Windows XP but works fine in Windows Vista. If this script nearly always shows current and peak usage levels well below the current page file size, you might want to consider reducing the initial size to save disk space. On the other hand, if you’re not short of disk space, there’s nothing to be gained from doing this and you might occasionally overload your custom settings, thereby degrading the performance of your system.
Should you enlarge your page file? Most users won’t need to do this. But you might want to keep an eye on the green line in the Memory graph of Resource Overview, as described above in “Ensuring that you have adequate RAM.” If that line is spiking off the top of the graph a great deal of the time during your normal work, you might consider increasing the maximum size of your page file. (Disregard page file spikes and disk activity in general that takes place while you’re not actually working. This is likely to be the result of search indexing, defragmentation, or other background processes and does not indicate a problem with your actual work performance.)
NoteFor more information about page file management in Windows, we recommend the article “Virtual Memory in Windows XP” on the Windows Support Center website. Although the file magnitudes discussed in this article are pertinent to the Windows XP environment rather than to Windows Vista, the basic information about how Windows manages and uses page files is still useful and valid.
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Written by Jason on August 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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PWN to OWN. This is the name of the contest that made most Mac users worldwide seriously think about reading a security book or two to learn about securing their Macs ASAP. During the aforementioned contest a Mac running OS X Leopard was the first to give in to the intrusion attempts. It may not have been the brightest day in Apple’s history but it surely was the one when every Mac owner out there gave a second thought to the “Macs are the most secure” theory.
So, if Macs aren’t as secure as we have previously thought (I did too and even bet on the Vista computer that it would be the first to be compromised), what can we do to defend ourselves against attacks? One way would be to fire up the old integrated Mac OS X firewall and configure it to accept only incoming connections from IP addresses we know.
Although this is a good thing to do, the integrated firewall doesn’t do as good of a job as Apple would want us to believe. If you are not a very experienced user you’ll probably end up just enabling the damn thing and what protection do you think you’ll get? I’ll tell you: not very much because the machine that got “owned” at the PWN to OWN contest had the default settings and it went down pretty fast.
I know, this really is kind of hilarious, but hey, what else can you do? See, Apple really thinks about everything. It even allows you to stay online giving you a fake sense of security, kind of like walking through a black alley with a gun in your pocket (a gun filled with blanks).
So, this time for real, what can you actually do to protect the data on your Mac? To your surprise, and mine, the answer is given by the guys at Apple. Don’t know if you still remember but a while ago the company released a security configuration document for Leopard in which you can find a huge array of security tips that can help you protect your Mac more efficiently.
I have read the whole 240 pages and picked out the most important 5 tips – in my opinion – that you can use to be sure no one will ever be able to get access to your private data, or at least make their life a living hell while trying to breach into your system.
Tip 1 - Secure the network sharing services
The first and easiest way that comes to mind when dealing with securing your data is to prevent access to it from the outside. The easy way to do that would be to secure its network sharing services. How can this be done? Easy as pie: simply turn off the sharing services that you consider unnecessary and only leave running the ones that you really need.
Under this paragraph you will find the command-line commands you will have to enter to stop the following sharing services: DVD or CD sharing, screen sharing aka VNC, file sharing (trough FTP, SMB and AFP), web sharing (HTTP), remote login (SSH), remote management (ARD), Xgrid sharing, Internet sharing and Bluetooth sharing. Quite a handful if you ask me and as many opportunities for strangers to get their hands on your data.
The following commands are all available in the Leopard security configuration document published by Apple at the beginning of June 2008. To be able to use them you have to open a Terminal window, write each of them in the command-line and hit ENTER to run them. If possible use a copy/paste technique to be sure you don’t miss any characters because you will be the only one responsible in case you break your system.
## Disable DVD or CD Sharing.
service com.apple.ODSAgent stop
## Disable Screen Sharing.
srm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd
## Disable FTP.
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist
## Disable SMB.
defaults delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
com.apple.smb.server EnabledServices
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/nmbd.plist
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/smbd.plist
## Disable AFP.
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/
com.apple.AppleFileServer.plist
## Disable Web Sharing service.
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist
## Disable Remote Login.
service ssh stop
## Disable Remote Management.
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/
Resources/kickstart -deactivate -stop
## Disable Remote Apple Events.
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/eppc.plist
## Disable Xgrid Sharing.
xgridctl controller stop
xgridctl agent stop
## Disable Internet Sharing.
defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat NAT -
dict Enabled -int 0
launctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/
com.apple.InternetSharing.plist
## Disable Bluetooth Sharing.
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.bluetooth PrefKeyServicesEnabled 0
Tip 2 - Secure local access to your system
Once you have stopped the unnecessary sharing services it is time to secure local access to your system. The easiest way to do this is by managing the users that can get administrative privileges on your system. In the UNIX world, obtaining such privileges means that you are able to use the sudo command that will allow you to run any command you want as the one and only superuser aka root.
Why is it important to restrict access to this command? Because if an intruder gains access to your Mac and manages to get his/her hands on the root account (its hands if it’s some kind of super hacking robot) then he/she can do anything he/she wants on your system besides removing pieces of hardware out of the case (although they can be disabled if the intruder has the necessary skills).
To restrict access to the sudo command on certain accounts and only allow the trusted users to be able to run commands as superuser you will have to edit the /etc/sudoers file using the “sudo visudo” command (without the quotes). Next, remove the line that begins with %admin and, for each user that you want to be able to get superuser privileges, add “user ALL=(ALL) ALL” (where user is the user’s shortname). Now what remains to be done is to save and quit.
After editing the /etc/sudoers file this way you will have to repeat the same steps if you add other users to the system and want them to be able to use sudo.
Tip 3 - Encrypt your home folder
Now that you have secured the network and local access to your system and data, the time has come to further reinforce protection by encrypting your home folder. The easiest way to accomplish such a task is to use FileVault, an integrated OS X application that will help you encrypt a user’s home folder and files.
FileVault acts by moving everything you have in your home folder to a bundle disk image that can be encrypted using AES-256 encryption. The only downside to using it is that it will only act locally and will not protect and/or encrypt any data that you decide to move to a removable device or over the network.
Despite the fact that FileVault is not able to protect data outside your home folder, you can still have a bit of security enabled for the data that you temporarily store outside your home directory. When deleting such data you can make sure no one will ever get access to it by securely deleting it. Which brings us to the next tip.
Tip 4 - Securely erase data from your hard drive
I’ve mentioned above that you can securely erase data from your hard drive, which means that an ordinary deletion will not do the trick if you do not want later attempts of retrieving your data from your hard disk to be successful. When you delete something from the drive the system will not actually send it to oblivion. The only thing it actually does is remove the information related to that certain piece of data from the file system. In other words, it just causes itself a bad case of amnesia.
Albeit this will render all your attempts to recover the files using less advanced methods unsuccessful, there still are ways to retrieve it if you have the necessary software. Such a solution is called recovery software and it will be successful in its task if the hard disk space your data has been on has not been overwritten.
To make sure you will always securely erase your data from Finder go to Finder’s Preferences, click on the Advanced tab and there check the “Empty Trash securely” entry.
There are of course other ways to securely delete data on your Mac using the Disk Utility, the srm command-line command, securely emptying the Trash using Finder’s “Secure Empty Trash” option. To get a more detailed overview on how you can use them just download Apple’s document from HERE and head over to the “Securely Erasing Data” sub-chapter.
Tip 5 - Intrusion detection system
What do you call a secure system without an intrusion detection system? Well you can call it anything you want but one thing is certain: there is no system out there that can be considered 100% secure (except maybe the ones with no Internet connection but even those can be stolen).
In case of an intrusion you definitely want to know everything possible related to it. As Apple says, an intrusion detection system is the answer to this problem, because it will allow you to easily monitor everything that happens on your Mac and to examine the data that gets transferred through the network interfaces.
The exact same system will be the one that will automatically alert you in case of suspicious activity and, most of the time, it will also prevent malevolent actions before they are even performed.
The intrusion systems that you can use are of two kinds: network based and host based. From the first category I recommend you to install and use the free HenWen security application for OS X that will allow you to run and configure Snort, which will scan the network for undesirable traffic. The second category’s performer in my opinion is the also free Radmind Assistant, a solution that acts as a tripwire, being able to quickly detect and reverse changes to file system objects like folders, files, links, etc.
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Written by Jason on August 6th, 2008 with no comments.
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1. Top Ten Tips to Speed Up Windows Vista
2. About:Config Tweaks For Firefox 3
3. Top 10 Causes your computer slows
4. Turn XP into a Blazing Speed Demon
5. How to set permissions on a shared folder in Windows XP
6. Increase Vista External USB Hard Drive Speed
7. Vista Free Downloads to Tweak & Improve Your System
8. TOP10 - July 2008 Popular Tips
9. 17 User Interface (UI) Language Packs for Windows Vista
10. New Tweaks for Firefox 3
And other popular tips
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Written by Jason on August 1st, 2008 with no comments.
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With many innovations being made to today’s PC’s hardware, laptops and desktops have become much smaller and lighter. But one drawback to that light weight convenience is heat.
Computers today can pack more processing power in a much smaller and denser space, if you don’t keep them cool, you can pretty much guarantee a hardware failure will occur.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to keep tabs on hardware temperature using a free utility called CPUID.
HWMonitor from CPUID software is a hardware monitoring program that reads your PC Systems main health sensors, such as voltages, temperatures and fans speed. I mostly use it on my home PC to keeps tabs just on temperature since I use a laptop.
HWMonitor requires no installation and is a true portable application (does not copy files or create folders on your hard drive, or writes to the registry).
To run it, just launch HWMonitor.exe.
HWMonitor will display the current temperature along with the minimum and maximum values. If your system is capable of displaying voltages and fan speeds, you will also see those valuse displayed (my system does not).
The program can also handle the most common sensor chips, such as ITE IT87 series, most Winbond® ICs, and others. In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T, and video card GPU temperature.
HWMonitor can be run right off your USB stick and is handy to have when troubleshooting. The only feature missing, is the capability to minimize to the system tray.
CPUID also makes other utilities including PCTipsBox that can analyze and benchmark your PC, and includes a powerful inventory feature that is useful if you need to re-install Windows
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Written by Jason on July 20th, 2008 with no comments.
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Just when you think Google can’t do any more to improve their search results, they continue to fine tune in subtle ways. And that’s a good thing, because when you do spot these improvements, you will wonder what took them so long to implement.
One improvement is adding more information in search results so you can quickly determine if it’s useful or not to click on the link.
For example, how many times have you search for something only to click on a search result that was an old forum post? For the most part, forums can be a great resource for information. But not if it’s old or there are no replies to the post.
Now you can see if the post is current, because Google will display the date of the forum post along with information of the forum thread in the search result.
When Google finds a result, and it’s a forum post, it now categorizes the search result (as a forum post) and provides further information about the thread such as the number of posts and authors in the thread.
Another example is with video searches. Google now displays the duration and the average rating (if it can find one).
No more watching long useless videos. With the time and rating information, you know exactly how long it will take to watch the video and if it’s worth your time.
Sometimes searching for something can bring you to a page that was written in a different language. You know the page must be relevant to what your searching for, but you just can’t read it. Instead of clicking on the link to the page, click on the link ‘Translate this page’ link to the right of the site link.
By clicking on it, Google will automatically translate the page to the default language setting of your browser.
TIP: If you comes across a page in a different language, other than searching for it, copy and paste the URL into Google search box. Google will return the search result with the ‘Translate this page’ link next to the result.
Google offers many specific types of search portals such as images, maps, news, shopping, etc. Instead of going to each portal, the search result menu now includes relevant links based on your search.
Take notice there is also a definition link that takes you to Answers.com for a quick definition of your search word.
Now a days, shopping on the Internet for the best price can be a snap, if you use search engines such as Yahoo Shopping or Shopzilla that compare prices and offers reviews. Google is finally catching up with their product and lets you compare prices.
As of now the compare prices feature seems to be limit to a few catagories (mostly electronics), but look for that to change over time.
Google is well known for some of their obscure search tricks and some of them are most useful when you are in hurry. One of them is checking if your airline flight is on time.
…If only it could tell me how long the Security line is.
Seen any other new improvements from Google not mentioned here? Leave a comment and let us know what you find.
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